“Today after the consultations were over, the [Ukrainian] military continued shelling [the village of] Semenovka [on the outskirts of the city of Slaviansk],” Pushilin, who chairs the presidium of the DPR's Supreme Council, said. “About five people were killed there and a convoy of heavy armoured vehicles was heading towards the city of Donetsk from the area of Donetsk’s airport.”

“And it is just a short list of aggressive activities of the occupation troops in our territory,” he said.

“That is the price of agreements with Kiev,” he said. “We believe the Kiev authorities view them as a formality necessary for signing the economic part of an association agreement with the European Union [on June 27],” he said stressing that Kiev “needs a truce at least formally though it does not exist de facto.”

Late on June 23 consultations focusing on the implementation of a peace plan in the south-east were held in Donetsk. Alexander Borodai, the DPR's prime minister, said that militia in the south-east of Ukraine have promised to cease fire before June 27.

“In reply to the cessation of fire by Kiev, we pledge to stop fire on our part too. The current ceasefire is valid until June 27,” he said after talks on the implementation of Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko’s peace plan in the region specifying that movement of troops in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics is banned too.

On June 20 at 23.00 Moscow Time, Poroshenko’s decree on a unilateral ceasefire has entered into force.

The document set the truce deadline until June 27 stipulating that “if the Ukrainian military units or peaceful civilians come under an armed attack, the servicemen will open return fire.